Colonel Vic Senior

8:41AM BST 12 Apr 2008

Colonel Vic Senior, who has died aged 91, won an MC in Tunisia in 1943 and a Bar to it in Greece the next year.

In March 1943 Senior, then a captain, was at Mareth, Tunisia, in command of a troop of 50th Royal Tank Regiment (50 RTR). When Axis forces tried to break through the Allied defences, his squadron attacked an enemy position in the Wadi Melah under heavy shellfire.

The wadi was considered a formidable obstacle to tanks but, under Senior's leadership, his squadron was able to cross the river bed and inflicted severe casualties on the Italians, forcing them to withdraw.

Later that month, when 15 Panzer Division attacked the bridgehead on the Mareth Line and 50 RTR lost 27 tanks, Senior took command of the three remaining tanks.

By fighting throughout the night he managed to secure the left flank. Enemy infantry worked their way past his tanks on foot and anti-tank guns were brought to bear on him in the moonlight, but he gave no ground until he was ordered to withdraw. He was awarded his MC.

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Victor James Senior, always known as Vic, was born on May 24 1916 and educated at Harrow County School.

He joined the RTR as a trooper at the outbreak of the Second World War and was posted to 42 RTR in the Eighth Army in North Africa. Selected for officer training, he was commissioned into 50 RTR. He commanded 11 Troop, C Squadron, in the Battle of El Alamein and subsequently commanded a squadron in the invasion of Sicily. When his landing craft ran aground 60 yards short, he stripped off and dived in to see how deep the water was before deciding that the tanks could safely come ashore.

After a spell as instructor at the School of the Middle East Training Centre, Palestine, he rejoined 50 RTR in October 1944 for the struggle to liberate Greece after the German withdrawal.

His regiment was ordered to hold a very difficult sector close to the centre of Athens and came under sustained and determined attack from Greek Communist guerrilla forces, of which Elas (the National Liberation Army) was the largest.

The citation for the Bar to Senior's MC stated that he had outwitted and outfought Elas and prevented them from penetrating the GHQ area located less than 500 yards to his rear.

After Staff College and a staff appointment in BAOR, Senior served with 1 RTR in Korea in the final phase of the conflict.

Promotion to colonel came after three years with Nato at the Pentagon, and he then served as defence adviser at the British High Commission in Uganda.

On one occasion, just before the annual rugby club ball, he was told to leave the country within 48 hours. The Ugandan security forces had interpreted an order for flowers from Kenya as an encrypted message calling for the overthrow of the government.

Careful diplomacy was needed to defuse the situation.

After a posting to the Ministry of Defence and then to Ghana, in 1971 Senior retired from the Army. He was subsequently welfare director of the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association for some 10 years before he settled in Co Limerick in 1991.

Vic Senior died on July 29. He married, in 1947, Maureen Walsh, who survives him with their son and daughter.